Conner Museum opens Hoggie Holidays exhibit
As we enter the 2023 holiday season and everyone begins to bring out decorations and set up for Christmas, the Conner Museum is opening a Hoggie Holidays exhibit for Texas A&M University-Kingsville (TAMUK).
This is an interactive exhibit at which visitors can come in and enjoy a piece of the holiday experience.
“I am looking forward to seeing the different traditions from different families and the different cultures that will be represented,” student Frankie Brown said.
Being featured in the exhibit last year with her family, Frankie is hoping it is as fun as it was the previous year.
The traditions showcased in this exhibit will be from stories of the students involved.
“The exhibit is the voices of 35 Javelina students with 35 anthropology curators so it really represents the Javelina community and so hopefully with something that shares the food traditions and celebrations of their class colleagues and fellow Javelinas would be an attraction to people especially as they look towards their own winter celebrations and anticipating the things they celebrate in their communities,” Professor Dr. Christine Robbins said.
This will also allow visitors who come into the exhibit to learn about the traditions of TAMUK students and reflect on their own family traditions.
“The exhibit features Javelina students’ favorite foods and who they associate with these holiday food traditions,” Dr. Robbins added.
Along with this, students have also donated objects that relate to their various food traditions such as a tortilla maker and a sauerkraut crock.
“There are also some interactive components where visitors can add their own favorite holiday food traditions and a fill in the blank poem about their traditions and decorate ornaments as well as trying some food trivia from around the world,” Dr. Robbins said.
With interesting aspects from the food traditions to the interactive components the holiday exhibit is expected to be a strong attraction.
“The expectation of the holiday exhibit is really to celebrate the different holiday traditions and expose those in the surrounding community to the different types of traditions that exist in South Texas and on our campus and have a place for students who are in the anthropology food course and the anthropology club to showcase their classwork and research,” Director of Administration and Operation of Conner Museum Kathy Pawelek said.
This will be the second year this exhibit is taking place, last year being done with the anthropology club and some lower-level anthropology courses.
“Last year it was ‘Hoggie Holidays Share Traditions,’ which was a general theme mainly about different traditions that exist during the December and January holidays,” Director Pawelek said.
The Hoggie Holidays exhibit is open to the public through Jan. 6 with Conner Museum hours from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesday to Saturday.
